just shut down the way professionals do when they’re faced
with a window between periods of intense activity. Froelich was
accustomed to sleeping on planes. That was clear. Her head
was tucked down on her shoulder and her arms were folded
neatly in her lap. She looked good. The three agents around her
sprawled a little less decorously. They were big guys. Wide
necks, broad shoulders, thick wrists. One of them had his foot
shoved out in the aisle. It looked to be about size fourteen. He
assumed Neagley was asleep behind him. She could sleep
anywhere. He had once seen her sleep in a tree, on a long
stakeout. He found the button and laid his chair back a fraction
and got comfortable. But then the reporters started talking. To
Armstrong, but about him.
‘Can we get a name, sir, for the record?’ one of them said.
Armstrong shook his head. ‘I’m afraid identities need to
remain confidential at this point,’ he said..
‘But we can assume we’re still in the national security arena
here?’
Armstrong smiled. Almost winked. ‘I can’t stop you assuming
things,’ he said.
The reporters wrote something down. Started a conversation
about foreign relations, with heavy emphasis on military
resources and spending. Reacher ignored it all and tried to drift
off. Came round again when he heard a repeated question and
felt eyes on him. One of the reporters was looking in his
direction.
‘But you do still support the doctrine of overwhelming force?’
the other guy was asking Armstrong.
Armstrong glanced at Reacher. ‘Would you wish to comment
on that?’
Reacher yawned. ‘Yes, I still support overwhelming force.
That’s for sure. I support it big time. Always have, believe me.’
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The reporters both wrote it down. Armstrong nodded wisely.
Reacher laid his chair back a little more and went to sleep.
He woke up on the descent into Bismarck. Everybody around
him was already awake. Froelich was talking quietly to her
agents, giving them their standard operational instructions.
Neagley was listening along with the three guys in her row. He
glanced out of Armstrong’s window and saw brilliant blue sky
and no clouds. The earth was tan and dormant, ten thousand
feet below. He could see the Missouri river winding north to
south through an endless sequence of bright blue lakes. He
could see the narrow ribbon of 1-94 running east to west. The
brown urban smudge of Bismarck where they met.
‘We’re leaving the perimeter to the local cops,’ Froelich was
saying. ‘We’ve got forty of them on duty, maybe more. Plus
State troopers in cars. Our job is to stick close together. We’ll
be in and out quick. We’re arriving after the event has started
and we’re leaving before it finishes.’
‘Leave them wanting more,’ Armstrong said, to nobody in
particular.
‘Works in show business,’ one of the reporters said. The
plane yawed and tilted and settled into a long shallow glide
path. Seat backs came upright and belts were ratcheted fight.
The reporters stowed their notebooks. They were staying on
the plane. No attraction in open-air local politics for important
foreign-relations journalists. Froel, ich glanced across at Reacher
and smiled. But there was worry in her eyes.
The plane put down gently and taxied over to a corner of the
tarmac where a five-car motorcade waited. There was a State
Police cruiser at each end and three, identical stretched Town
Cars sandwiched between. A small knot of ground crew standing
by with a rolling staircase. Armstrong travelled with his
detail in the centre limo. The back-up crew took the one behind
it. Froelich and Reacher and Neagley took the one in front. The
air was freezing, but the sky was bright. The sun was blinding.
‘You’ll be freelancing,’ Froelich said. ‘Wherever you feel you
need to be.’
There was no traffic. It felt like empty country. There was
a short fast trip over smooth concrete roads and suddenly
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Reacher saw the familiar church tower in the distance, and the
low surrounding huddle of houses. There were cars parked
solid along the side of the approach road all the way up to a
State Police roadblock a hundred yards from the community